Oh Canada
This post is long overdue, but I went to Banff and Jasper with Kolina and her parents 7 days this month. This was my second time going to Canada – the first was going to Niagra Falls when I was a kid. Back then, you didn’t need a US Passport to cross the border. How things have changed! But, I got a stamp in my passport which is always awesome.
We flew into Calgary, got a rental car, and drove up to Banff. We spent the next two days exploring the Canadian Rockies, primarily by car but also through a few short hikes. We then made our way to Jasper for two nights and then back to Banff and then on to Calgary. This area is great because a bunch of sites are accessible only a few minutes from the major highway. Although the speed limit was in kilometers and currency was different, it really looked a lot like the United States, with the exception of people saying “about” in a Canadian accent and Sportscenter being spelled Sportscentre.
Unfortunately, since it had rained/snowed a lot this winter, lots of the popular attractions were still frozen over. Lake Louise, for example, was only beginning to melt:
What this meant, however, was that the parking lots were empty and there weren’t many people to compete with for views. Even better, instead of taking a boat onto Maligne Lake, we got to walk on the lake instead:
And, making the best of the situation, we did get to see snow-capped mountains and a lot of snow, which will be gone in a few weeks. I’m sure if we had gone a little later, the water rushing down the falls would be even greater (but even then it still looked really awesome):
We also saw animals! Wildlife! Bears!
The rest of my photos are here. I had to play around a bunch with the photos in Lightroom – I made the mistake of shooting in ISO 400 instead of 200 so everything was brighter than it needed to be. Oops – what a fail. Up next, Wroclaw and Dublin!
